A few weeks ago, I wrote a
story about Joe Ferrierro's chances of winning an appeal from his federal conviction for fraud. Those chances appear to have gone up. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two of the three honest services fraud cases that are on this year's calendar. The court expressed great skepticism about the law, with most of the justices thinking it too vague and therefore unconstitutional. It also did not seem like the Court had much interest in reshaping the law to make it less broad and vague, so it seems like honest services is headed for its demise.
Two questions remain: The first is the timing of any decision. The two cases argued this week do not squarely address the constitutionality of the statute, so the court might wait for the Spring and decide this issue when the
Skilling case is argued, or they could request additional briefing on the constitutionality issue now. Either way, it appears to be a few months away before the court finally rules.
The second issue is that this should allow many corrupt politicians out of jail. This is probably not a result that the Court will like, since the honest services statute did catch some politicians engaged in pretty shady stuff (see, e.g. Bruno, Joseph). As Ferrierro goes, though, it seems to be the right result, as the fraud claims against him were pretty weak ot begin with.
